


Shattered Dreams

by OnyxSardonyx



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4979485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSardonyx/pseuds/OnyxSardonyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amethyst and Steven play. Pearl watches. Something happens. A bird cries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> First fic I've finished/published in ages. Phew.

 

 

The washing machine was spinning, around and around and around. She could hear the sloshing of the wet clothes inside and the quiet thrumming of the machine's motor. The wind was howling around her, barely registering on her skin.

Faint laughter reached her ears from below, so Pearl turned around and let her gaze wander. On the beach, far, far below her, Amethyst and Steven were playing. It was their laughter she'd heard, or rather Amethyst's, because she was chasing Steven, who was running away screaming.

"I'm gonna getchaaaa!"

Pearl smiled to herself only because she was positive the two down there wouldn't see her or notice her.

Steven ran up the steps to the house, fell, got back up and ran inside. Amethyst followed him, still laughing. Steven came straight back out through the window, and Amethyst opened it wide before transforming into her Purple Puma form and jumping at Steven.

Only she must have miscalculated, because she didn't come down on Steven, but on the wooden bannister, which gave in under her weight.

Pearl dropped the laundry basket she was holding. The way down from the porch had never seemed this long. She was positioned to jump down from the temple's hand and screw the laundry before Amethyst hit the ground, because she just knew what was going to happen.

She was proven right by the glassy crack that could be heard half a moment later.

She could have used the transporter, but that wasn't fast enough for her; besides, she could easily jump down gracefully to the roof of the house, and then to the porch and the ground. She was there less than a second after Amethyst had fallen.

"Amethyst!" she yelled, "I told you to be careful!"

"'S alright, P," Amethyst said, still lying on the ground. "I didn't even hurt myself."

Pearl knew better. She took Amethyst by the shoulders and picked her up. "Show me your gem. I heard it crack all the way to the laundry." When Amethyst didn't move to show her, Pearl grabbed her top and yanked it down herself.

She gasped.

The crack was worse than she thought it would be, it ran right down the middle of Amethyst's gem and already almost parted it entirely.

"Amethyst, you need to be careful! Steven! Where is he! Steven!"

... he had been playing with Amethyst earlier, hadn't he? _Where was he?_

"P, stop fussing, I'm..." She phased out of existence for a moment, and when she came back, she spoke warbled nonsense.

"Amethyst, you just have to stop playing with Steven like this!" Pearl snapped, frustrated. "One day you're seriously going to hurt yourself! And look at you now - _where's Steven!?_ "

Steven didn't appear, so Pearl picked up Amethyst despite Amethyst's unintelligible protests, ran up the stairs and into the house.

"STEVEN!"

Amethyst winced. Pearl realised she'd shouted very, very loudly, but didn't stop to apologise to Amethyst's heightened sensitivity. "Steven, where are you, we need you!"

He was nowhere to be found.

"GARNET?"

Garnet wasn't around, either.

"Where is everyone?"

She had no time to worry about it, she decided, because Garnet was always okay and she was probably looking out for Steven, too, although why she hadn't seen this and made sure Steven was here to heal Amethyst, Pearl had no clue. She dragged Amethyst to the transporter and warped to Rose's fountain.

At least, she thought she warped to Rose's fountain. When the warp activated on the other side, she found herself on the battlefield.

"The battlefield!?"

It had to have something to do with Amethyst, she decided, so she put Amethyst down none-too-gently.

"This is all your fault, Amethyst!" she yelled. "Why can't you just be responsible for once? First you have to go get yourself cracked, and now whatever that's done to you is affecting the warp so we can't even get to the fountain! I'm scared to use it now, who knows where we'll end up!"

Amethyst looked at her wide-eyed, then got up without saying a word and walked away from Pearl.

"Amethyst, _where_ do you think you're going?!"

Amethyst turned, her face an angry grimace which was only made worse by her malformations from the crack.

"Tolguy afpeth nahdal!" she screamed, and Pearl had no idea what she was trying to say but she realised Amethyst was upset and didn't like Pearl shouting at her.

"Stop!" Pearl shouted after her, and when Amethyst didn't, she ran after her. "Stop, Amethyst, we just need to wait, I'm sure Garnet will be here soon with Steven -"

Amethyst rolled her eyes and kept walking. Worse yet, she broke into a run.

"Amethyst, STOP!" Pearl screamed and ran faster. "You'll aggravate your crack -"

Amethyst looked around, tripped and fell.

She fell on one of the numerous weapons that were lying around everywhere, a large axe, and Pearl winced and cried out when she heard Amethyst's gem impact on the metal.

"AMETHYST!"

She was next to her in a flash, pulling her up. Amethyst twisted out of Pearl's hands until she was free and ran off again, but she phased half a second later until her body was entirely back-to-front. She was running towards Pearl now, crashing into her unseeing, and they fell in a mess of tangled limbs.

Pearl was breathing hard despite not needing to breathe, and she took Amethyst's shoulders with a lot more force than she needed to.

"That's _enough_! You're going to listen to me, Amethyst, and stop being such a childish _brat_!"

Her gaze fell from Amethyst's face to her gem, and she inhaled sharply.

"Amethyst -"

But it was too late; Amethyst disintegrated under her grip, her face melting away into nothing within moments, and a second later, Pearl was alone.

The broken shards of Amethyst's gem were lying on her chest.

"Amethyst -"

She hardly dared to touch the broken gem. It was in three clean pieces, definitely shattered, beyond repair.

"No... Amethyst, no..."

She felt hot tears well up and wished, wished she had Rose's power to heal with her tears because maybe, just maybe the three clean pieces could still be mended back into her friend - it was only three pieces and Rose had healed really, really bad cracks on a regular basis during the war, if only she could get Amethyst to the fountain...

She shook the tears out of her eyes and very, very carefully picked up Amethyst's shards (no, she told herself, Amethyst's gem, she wasn't going to start thinking of her like she was already dead). She carried her over to the warp and held them close as she warped to the fountain.

The tears rose up again as she entered the sanctuary because she knew this wouldn't work. Amethyst was too badly damaged.

"Amethyst, hang on now," Pearl said, tears streaming down her face incessantly. "You're going to be just fine, I know you will because during the war, we..." _We found lots of gems like this, and Rose tried to heal them all, but she never succeeded, and we could only bubble them and keep them away from the enemy -_

"This is my fault."

The fountain answered with the quiet sounds of flowing water.

"No, it is - I just yelled at you instead of keeping you safe... I could have avoided this... Amethyst..."

She held Amethyst's pieces together as she lowered them into the lacrimal water. Rose's statue mirrored Pearl's tears. Amethyst remained in pieces, and Pearl collapsed next to the fountain, clutching Amethyst's shards.

"Amethyst, I'm -I'm s-s-s-so s-s-sorry," she sobbed, curling her hands around the shards, "Amethyst... Amethyst, I never wanted this... How am I supposed to live without you? How are we - What am I going to tell Steven..." She curled up on the ground, felt one of Amethyst's shards break into more pieces in her hands.

She wanted to leave, leave everything behind forever and retreat into her gem like she had after Rose had given birth to Steven because she thought back then her pain could never be matched by anything she'd ever feel.

She was wrong. This was worse, so much worse, because it was Pearl's fault and she could have stopped it. It was so much worse because Rose might come back one day, but Amethyst would never come back.

She didn't dare to leave because Amethyst needed to be taken care of.

_Stop being such a childish brat!_

Those were the last words Amethyst had heard.

"No, no," Pearl whispered, "Amethyst, I'm so sorry, I was being childish, not you, I upset you, I shouldn't have yelled... Amethyst, I need you, you can't just leave like this, you need to come back -"

It all came out, all those words, useless and needless and pointless because Amethyst was dead now and it was Pearl's fault and when she got back she was going to tell Garnet to smash her because she deserved it and she didn't want to live with this pain.

"Amethyst, I love you," she whispered, "I never told you because I always thought I'd get the chance to later - but I never told you and you never knew, you - I always just shouted at you, Amethyst, I'm so sorry, you must have thought I hated you, I never did, I was always just worried, don't leave... Amethyst..."

Because Pearl had learned over time that she could exist in a world where Rose Quartz didn't, but right now, she didn't think she could live when Amethyst had died.

Did Amethyst not realise how much Pearl loved and needed her?

No, Pearl knew, Amethyst didn't, Amethyst hadn't, because Pearl had only ever shouted at Amethyst...

She thought she heard something, a voice. She ignored it because nothing mattered but the pain, the pain that she had to feel because she couldn't allow herself to be distracted from this, this death she had caused, the death of her friend, someone she loved -

She cried clutching Amethyst's shards and hoped Garnet would see what she did and not forgive her and kill her on the spot for this unforgivable thing she'd done.

The voice she'd heard a moment ago grew stronger. It was saying her name.

"No," Pearl said because she would never hear that voice again, it was surely just a figment of her imagination. She uncurled enough to open her hands and look at Amethyst's shards, tears streaming down her face.

"Pearl," Amethyst's voice said again. "Come on, P."

"No," Pearl said, but the area around her started melting and crumbling away. Pearl didn't even have the energy to scream. She kept her gaze focused on Amethyst.

"Pearl, come on," Amethyst told her again. She sounded urgent. Worried. Amethyst - worried?

Pearl looked up from Amethyst's shards, and the entire fountain and everything around it vanished suddenly to be replaced with darkness and silence.

"Pearl, I'm here," Amethyst said.

Pearl looked down into her hands. Amethyst's shards were gone. Instead, Amethyst was kneeling in front of her, her hand on Pearl's shoulder, a serious look on her face.

"What..."

"You were dreaming, Pearl. But it's okay now. I'm here, I'm okay. You can stop crying now, I'm okay."

Pearl didn't stop crying. She pulled Amethyst towards her and crushed her in a hug, her tears falling into Amethyst's hair as she enjoyed the feeling of Amethyst in her arms, she was okay, she was fine -

She remembered now, they were out on a mission and it had dragged on forever, so when they came back, Pearl sat down on the sofa to rest for a minute. She must have fallen asleep.

A nightmare, she told herself, that's all it had been. Just a dream. A mixed-up movie that felt too real to be just that.

But Amethyst was here. She was okay.

She took a long, long while to calm down and stop crying, and Amethyst didn't let go of her for one second. Pearl clung to her, not wanting to let go. She never wanted to let Amethyst go out of her reach again.

"Amethyst, I'm so sorry," she said.

"It's okay, P, I'm fine."

"No, no," Pearl said, resting her head on Amethyst's shoulder. "I'm always just... shouting at you and yelling and insulting you..."

She drew back a little so she could see Amethyst's face. She reached up to cup it with both her hands, holding it tightly. Amethyst was real. She was alive. She was okay.

"I love you, Amethyst," Pearl said, finally, to her Amethyst because she'd never told her but she needed to, now more than ever. "I can't believe I needed this dream to make me realise I need to tell you -"

Amethyst chuckled and pulled Pearl into a hug again.

"I know, P," she said. "Dream me was being stupid. I know you're just looking out for me, right? And it's okay. I love you too, Pearl."

Pearl smiled through her tears and pulled away to press a kiss to Amethyst’s cheek, then her forehead, then her hair, her nose, her chin, anywhere she could reach. Amethyst giggled and fought her off half-heartedly.

“Pearl, stop, I’m not a gemling anymore.”

“You are to me,” Pearl said, grinning. She curled her arms around Amethyst again and Amethyst snuggled her, smiling.

“I couldn’t live without you, Amethyst.”

“Aw shucks P, so you care about me now?” Amethyst chuckled.

“Yeah! And I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t.” She ran her hand over Amethyst’s long hair.

“You should have nightmares more often if it means I get cuddles afterwards,” Amethyst mumbled.

“Oh no, no way.” Pearl tightened her arms around Amethyst. It still hurt to remember her dream. If it had been real -

“I am never sleeping again. Ever.”

“But can I still get cuddles sometimes?”

Pearl smiled and petted Amethyst’s hair.

“You can have cuddles anytime you like,” she said.

“Really?” Amethyst grinned at her. “Even when I’m covered in mud and slime and bugs?”

Pearl rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling. Everything was fine now.

“Yeah,” she said. “Even then.”

 

 


End file.
